The Western Bays provide many recreational opportunities such as kayaking, but scientists say that fertilizer runoff and partially treated sewage effluent threaten the health of the bays. Above, a wetland canal at Norman J. Levy Park and Preserve in Merrick.

Superstorm Sandy will be remembered as one of Nassau County’s most demoralizing calamities: the miles of rubble that choked the expanses where houses had stood in dignified symmetry, the thousands of Long Islanders living in limbo, forced to use their savings to stay afloat. People weren’t the only ones affected by the storm, though. Sandy devastated wildlife throughout Nassau’s Western Bays, which scientists had already considered to be fragile ecosystems –– many on the brink of collapse –– long before the storm.

The bays provide habitats for myriad marine creatures. They are, however, rife with ecological problems, with water quality suffering for decades. The bays have even made the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s roster of impaired water bodies for pathogens because they are awash with bacteria. And the condition of the bays has only worsened since Superstorm Sandy struck in October 2012.

Awash in wastewaterThe Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant, one of four sewage treatment plants in Nassau, handles 40 percent of the county’s sewage. According to Citizens Campaign for the Environment, a non-for-profit, nonpartisan advocacy organization working to protect public health and the environment, the plant daily discharges 58.5 million gallons of wastewater into Reynolds Channel, a strait that begins at East Rockaway inlet and ends at Point Lookout.